Counting the Words
by 7cellsinachicken
Summary: Sherlock and John have left London after the city has been taken over by the "Infected", also known as zombies. Apocalypse AU, Johnlock, major character death. T for language and gore, no sexual content. One-shot.


"John."

John Watson looked up from the book in his hands wearily, the numbers running through his mind like computer code. _One hundred and twenty-seven._

"Sherlock?"

"Shh," the Consulting Detective hissed at his companion, staring toward the front of the garage. There was a silence, long and cold and heavy. Irritated, John began to tap his fingers against the spine of his book restlessly before Sherlock looked back at him. "I heard something."

"Oh?"

"…I'm going to investigate," Sherlock decided, standing and brushing himself

off before heading toward the garage door.

"If you get yourself killed I'm not coming out to collect your body," John raised his voice slightly as he watched Sherlock stand by the door. His warning echoed off the smooth, stone walls ominously. The Consulting Detective narrowed his eyes. "Sherlock."

"I'll take the revolver," Sherlock's footsteps were loud in the silence as he walked back to John's side, only to pick up their one and only gun from the floor before he turned back again.

"You can't be serious. If there's any Infected out there, you're going to get yourself bitten. Don't blame me."

"Why would I blame you?"

"I don't know, but I'm sure you would somehow."

"Don't be daft, John, I'm not going to blame you."

"Just… stay inside," John looked up from his book again, the dark circles under his eyes only darker with exasperation. "Please."

"You can't expect me to be cooped up in this garage for the rest of my life, John," Sherlock argued. "I'm going to explode."

"That's an exaggeration, and you know it."

"Obviously I'm not going to actually explode, but John, you don't understand, my brain is spinning out of control and if I spend one more minute in this hellish garage I may just scream."

"So you're going to wander off and get eaten? Not on my watch."

"Please, John," Sherlock's usually cold eyes grew soft, but John knew better, he knew it was just an act. He glared.

"No."

"I don't need your permission," Sherlock shrugged, expression wiping clean of emotion again, and he turned toward the garage door. John was silent as his companion punched in the code for the keypad on the wall, and the steel door slowly began to rise with a loud and obnoxious groan. "Coming?" Sherlock called, looking back at the army doctor. John shook his head. "Fine."

Sherlock left with a flourish, walking down the driveway of the abandoned house and turning the corner. As John got up to close the garage door, having to pull over a box to stand on to pull the door down, he wondered to himself if Sherlock would ever come back.

* * *

John began counting the words two months earlier.

It was raining. Every raindrop on the roof of the abandoned house sounded like a gunshot. John was alone in the bedroom, pulling out each drawer carefully, observing the scrupulously folded clothes in the drawers. The creases in the fabric were sharp and exact, the folding of someone with an acute intellect, a perfectionist. When John arrived a the bedside table, he didn't hesitate before pulling out that drawer, as well, and finding that it was unoccupied, save for one thing. The book lay face-up. _Of Mice and Men._

John raised his eyebrows. He remembered reading it, maybe for school, but he as less than fond of it at the time. He squinted at the paperback cover. On it was illustrated a long dirt road, tread on by two rugged-looking men, side by side.

Quietly, he slipped the book into his backpack and pulled the zipper closed over it. The chattering of the metal zipper weaving shut clashed with the raindrops on the roof and made the army doctor hate the silence of the empty house even more.

That night, Sherlock and John shared the bed in the master bedroom. In the darkness of the room, Sherlock stared up at the ceiling and listened to the rain on the rooftop. He mused to himself, as he felt John's steady breathing beside him, whether the rain sounded more like a pattering or a gushing.

"John?" Sherlock said suddenly, making his companion jump from beside him. John rolled over and looked wearily at the dark-haired man.

"Sherlock?"

"I thought you were asleep."

"No."

Sherlock stayed silent for a few moments. John fleetingly wished he could tell what the Consulting Detective was thinking. He never could.

"Perhaps when this is all over," Sherlock finally continued, "you will not need a separate bedroom in 221B Baker Street."

"…Sherlock…." John trailed off lamely. He struggled to see the other man's face through the darkness, but all he could make out was the smooth bridge of his nose, his sharp cheekbones, and his icy eyes that shined in the darkness as they glanced at him.

"Say something," Sherlock's voice was uncharacteristically soft.

"I'm not… I'm not gay, Sherlock, you know that."

"I have never felt any physical attraction to you, John. This is not about sex to me." When John continued to stare at him blankly, Sherlock sat up in the bed and John did, as well. "I am… _fond _of the feeling of falling asleep with you at my side."

"Okay…."

"Understand that I have no desire to kiss you," Sherlock told him bluntly. "But being close to you triggers pleasant hormones in my brain."

"What?"

"Oxytocin, Vasopressin, Dopamine, John. Hormones of affection."

"Oh."

"I feel no sexual urges toward you," Sherlock explained, eyeing John curiously, "but, oddly enough, I value and crave your affection."

John was at a loss for words. He stared at his companion and wondered to himself. He wondered if Sherlock held him through his nightmares because he knew it made John feel safe. He wondered if the way Sherlock had been looking at him recently was, in fact, laced with more than friendship. Most of all, he wondered if Sherlock knew he felt the same way.

Then he shook his head and kissed the Consulting Detective on the cheek quickly and impulsively.

Sherlock frowned, puzzled, before pointing out, "You missed my lips."

* * *

John counted the words of the book _Of Mice and Men _to take his mind off their current situation. Sherlock began to notice. John would withdraw the book and count furiously, his finger grazing down the page, whenever he was upset or anxious or frustrated. Sherlock knew John would become cross with him whenever he was interrupted. Sherlock was jealous of that book. He wanted to be that book.

So on a dreary afternoon, two months after they had kissed, Sherlock was glad for a distraction when he heard what sounded like a dustbin being knocked over. He abandoned John and his ridiculous book in the garage and went out to investigate, ignoring John's protests.

Now, John leaned against the wall, hours later, worry knotting in his stomach like a cruel and unrelenting death grip. He needed Sherlock to be alright. If Sherlock was anything other than alright when he returned—no. He could not think about it. He rubbed his palms down his face in exasperation and banished any thoughts of bleeding, bitten, Infected Sherlock stumbling under the garage door from his mind.

He picked up his book and started at square one. _A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hill-side bank and runs deep and green. _That is twenty-one words. He'd read those twenty-one words many times to calm himself. He imagined the Salinas River dropping close to the hillside south of Soledad, running deep and green. It did not have its usual effect.

"A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green," John repeated in a mutter. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. He could feel it, like a knife stabbing at his chest. Wrong. The air smelled of Wrong. "A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green." It was a chant now. A prayer.

He let out a breath he wasn't aware he had been holding when he heard the three knocks on the garage door, the signal from Sherlock to open it. He dropped his book facedown on the stone-cold floor and rushed to the wall, frantically typing in the keycode. As the garage slowly lifted itself, John ducked under the small opening to scold Sherlock.

"You've been hours! Where the hell have—oh my God." John's irritable tone fell flat when he saw his companion. As the door was still raising itself, taking its sweet time, the army doctor pulled his Consulting Detective through the opening only half his height, but it wasn't difficult, Sherlock was already bent over at the waist. "Sherlock!"

"John…."

"Holy fuck, oh my God," John cursed, punching the keypad on the wall furiously to close the garage door behind them. As it did so, with a whine of protest, John leaned all of Sherlock's weight onto his shoulders and led him over to a wooden box, where he sat his taller friend and kneeled down in front of him. "Jesus, Sherlock… are you… did you…?"

"I've been bitten, John, it got me, they got me, John," Sherlock managed. "The Infected. They got me."

"'They'? There was more than one?"

"Yes, John, I—" Sherlock cut himself off, pushing John away from him when John tried to kiss him desperately. "No, you can't, my saliva, it could infect you, too."

"Do I look like I care about that?" John stammered, but he did lean away again, taking Sherlock's hands in his instead.

Sherlock was obviously quickly growing distant. His blue eyes, usually fiery with life, were dead and dark. His body was slumped, as if it had no will to hold itself up. He was grotesque with gashes and his flesh was torn, but the most obvious wounds were the bites. On his shoulder, his shirt was torn away, revealing a deep bite oozing scarlet blood. His arms were riddled with the wounds, the chunks of flesh torn away, the punctures from human teeth.

"Sherlock," John murmured weakly. Caring about him would not help save him. But there was no way to help him, so he allowed himself to care. He looked down at their intertwined fingers. His hands were slick with Sherlock's blood.

"John," Sherlock leaned forward slightly so his faltering voice could be heard. "You need to shoot me."

"No," John shook his head furiously, brushing Sherlock's hair away from his dead and glazing eyes.

"Yes, John, once the venom reaches my brain I will try to kill you."

"I don't care."

"Don't be irrational," Sherlock snapped, and John gave a shaky laugh.

"I'm not going to shoot you, Sherlock, we were going to share a bedroom in 221B, we just have to wait till all the zombies were cleared out, right? They were going to make a cure, and everyone would be okay, right?"

"That doesn't matter anymore; if we wait much longer I'll be someone I'm not. I don't want to hurt you. Shoot me," Sherlock withdrew the revolver and shakily shoved it into John's grasp. "You've got to."

"Shoot yourself, you prick," John hated the way his voice was trembling, and he hated the burning sensation he felt in the back of his throat, his eyes shining and threatening tears. "Why didn't you just shoot yourself?"

"I didn't want you to think I had abandoned you."

"It would be better that way. God, Sherlock, why did you come back, why are you making me do this? I can't do it. I can't. You have to." John shook his head furiously, standing up, but despite his words he did not give Sherlock the gun. "Why do I have to?"

"Because if I did it, you would blame yourself for letting me," Sherlock explained tenderly. John shot him a sharp look, but Sherlock's eyes were half-closed – he was past caring.

"And if I shoot you, I won't blame myself for killing you? What kind of logic is that? That makes no sense, you idiot, I'm not doing it."

"Please, John."

John had never heard Sherlock sincerely beg him for anything in his life. He had heard him plead for drugs, but he knew he was buttering him up, he didn't really mean it. Now, John stared at Sherlock, bloody and mangled and half-dead and Infected. In a few hours he would be gone. He would be a monster. And he wanted John to kill him.

"Raise the garage door so the bullet doesn't ricochet if it goes all the way through," Sherlock murmured. John obeyed numbly, walking over to the wall again and typing in the code. His fingers left blood on the numberpad.

As John Watson, the soldier, the companion, the friend, the man who kissed Sherlock Holmes, walked back to his dying better half, the words from his book ran through his mind.

_"Go on. How's it gonna be. We gonna get a little place."_

_"We'll have a cow. An' we'll have maybe a pig an' chickens…an' down the flat we'll have a …little piece alfalfa—"_

"_For the rabbits."_

"_For the rabbits."_

"_And I get to tend the rabbits."_

"_An' you get to tend the rabbits."_

That is fifty-four words.

"Do you think you would have liked sleeping by my side every night, John?" Sherlock asked, staring straight ahead as John stood behind him. The revolver shook in John's hands. He could not bring himself to raise it to Sherlock's head.

"It would have been lovely," John admitted quietly. "I would have never had another nightmare."

"And if you did, I could hold your hand, John. I would."

"I know you would," John choked.

"And perhaps when we were older," Sherlock continued, even though John wished he would stop, "we could move to the country, where no Infected could ever reach us. And I could take up beekeeping, John. I've always wanted to."

"I know."

"And it could be just the two of us."

John couldn't talk any longer. He finally allowed his tears to fall, sliding down his cheeks, his nose congesting and his throat swelling with his pain. He hoped Sherlock couldn't tell.

"Just the two of us," John managed, his voice now breaking with his tears. He pressed the gun against the back of Sherlock's head. His hands were still shaking.

"Goodbye, John."

"I'll see you. On the other side, I'll see you again."

"Alright."

"And you won't be all bloody."  
"I won't."

"So… so you don't have to say goodbye. Because I'll see you again."

"…You will.

I promise you will."


End file.
